Donald Trump’s anti-Mexican, anti-Muslim platform parallels the anti-immigrant Brexit platform. This poster, released days before the June 23 Brexit vote, shows refugees at the Croatia-Slovenia border in 2015.

Because of many similarities in the U.K. and the U.S. attitudes about immigration, I’m following up on my rant from last week on Brexit. There, I claimed that the UK’s Brexiters—people who voted for Britain to leave the European Union—were mostly white, Christian, anti-feminist, xenophobic, less-educated and conservative old geezers. Several commentators questioned my source (despite the live link right in my column!). Here it is: http://lordashcroftpolls.com/2016/06/how-the-united-kingdom-voted-and-why/ The results are both fascinating and depressing, given the scary ultra-nationalist parallels between Brexiters’ propaganda and Trump’s call to build a wall on our southern border and to keep Muslims out of the U.S.

On Brexit referendum day, pollsters asked 12,369 people (after they’d voted) the sort of questions that might, in retrospect, explain the unexpected result. They found that leave-voters were on the whole:

  • White: 53% white voters favored leaving Europe. 58% and 70% Asians and Blacks, respectively, wanted to stay.

  • Christian: Of those identifying as Christian, most (58%) voted to leave. (70% of Muslims wanted to stay.)

  • Anti-feminist: 78% of leavers thought feminism “a force for ill”; for 62% of remainers it’s “a force for good.”

  • Xenophobic: Multiculturism is “a force for ill,” according to 80% of leavers; 68% of remainers thought it “a force for good.”

  • Less educated: Most Britons without a degree voted to leave, while 57% of those with a university degree opted to remain.

  • Conservative: Conservatives were mostly (58%) Brexiters. Between 63 and 75% (depending on party affiliation) of those identifying themselves as more left-leaning voted to remain.

  • Old: 60% of 65+ voters wanted to leave. Most 18-24 year-olds (73%) and 25-34 year-olds (62%) voted to stay.

     

For some in Britain, the poster of fleeing refugees shown above was reminiscent of Nazi propaganda. As Nazi leader Hermann Goring explained, “All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked. Works the same way in any country.”

 

Screenshots from a 1930s Nazi propaganda film. Twitter poster Brendan Harkin was apparently the first to notice the similarity with the Brexit poster. [From the BBC documentary Auschwitz: The Nazis and The Final Solution.]

 

Postscript: Four days after Brexit, England did another bunk (Britspeak for “make an unplanned departure”). Soccer isn’t such a big deal in the U.S., but in Britain it’s up there with God, the Queen, politics and pubs—in the Drumpf’s words, it’s “huge, huge!”

We’re in the middle of the European Football Championship, and last Monday, England—soccer’s birthplace—was not just eliminated from the competition, but (in an irony only exceeded by the idiots who didn’t think their “leave” vote would count) was beaten 2 goals to 1 by little Iceland, population 330,000. By international standards, the island’s footie team is hardly world-class. The Iceland team coach is a dentist in “real-life,” the goalie is a film-maker, and many of the other players are part-time.


Correction: Last week, I incorrectly said that Bernie Sanders conceded to Hillary Clinton. My error, he says he’ll vote for her, but hasn’t conceded.